Taylor Swift Tops Billboard Again

~By Quickjams on January 12, 2011

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift has smashed a host of records in her short career, but next week the 21-year-old, newly single star will notch another one that probably won’t land in her bio. In a dismally slow week on the Billboard albums chart, Swift’s Speak Now held on to the #1 spot again while posting the lowest totals ever for a #1 album in the SoundScan era.

According to SoundScan, the disc moved 52,000 copies, which helped vault it over the 3 million mark, but also broke the dubious record set by the soundtrack to the movie “Dreamgirls” in January 2007, which had the previous #1 low at 66,000.

Only one new title moved into the top 10, the soundtrack to Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Country Strong,” which came in at #10 on sales of 28,000 after climbing up from the #149 slot in its first week.

The Black Keys got a major bump before their “Saturday Night Live” appearance, moving up 12 spots to #14 with Brothers (25,000), which pushed the band over the 500,000 mark. Meanwhile, Jamie Foxx‘s latest, Best Night of My Life, slid a bit more, dropping five spots to #16 on sales of 23,000.

“Country Strong” fared much better on the iTunes album charts, coming in at #1, followed by the Black Keys, “Tron,” Mumford & Sons, West, Mars, Swift, Rihanna, a second “Country Strong” soundtrack compilation and Eminem. The iTunes singles chart was topped by Mars’ “Grenade,” followed by Katy Perry‘s “Firework,” Enrique Iglesias‘ “Tonight,” the Black Eyed Peas‘ “The Time (Dirty Bit)” and Wiz Khalifa‘s “Black and Yellow.” Though iTunes doesn’t provide sales figures, it was also a good week for Ke$ha, who came in at #6 with “We R Who We R,” followed by Lil Wayne‘s “6 Foot 7 Foot,” Pink‘s “Raise Your Glass,” Rihanna’s “What’s My Name” and Waka Flocka Flame‘s “No Hands.”

Things will probably stay mostly steady again next week with just a few new releases, including the latest from ornate rockers the Decemberists and albums by Cake, Cage the Elephant, James Blunt and the Script.